This week

is Great Eastern Wine Week.  I have been wanting to go to Boomer Creek vineyard for a while, but it is just up the road so I've never got there!  They offered a wine tasting and oysters event as part of the Wine Week, so I had to go.  Sadly my Easter oyster sharing sisters are still in their respective states, so I had to go it alone.

waiting for the others to arrive

 The 2 ladies are from St Helens and we became event buddies.

still waiting

but having a good look around

As you can see, it is a lovely place.  Finally the slackers, bar two, arrived and we set off following farm tracks to the oyster beds,

past this intriguing shed.

The posts marking the edge of the vines on the right.  It's a diversified farm with cattle, sheep and olives too.

Perhaps I should have zoomed to the oyster lines... but they are out there.

Walking back along the road and we passed sharpened posts for more vine planting - stirring memories of Griffith and Rosie, whose first Dad was a supplier of these posts.  We returned to the cellar door and sat at tables for six.  Trays of oysters came out and I was very happy.  A taste of the bubbly Sparkling Joy and I was replete.  But the food kept coming - Wicked Cheeses, Bream Creek cheeses, charcuterie and more oysters.  More wine tastings - whites, TGR and pinot - not my type of wines but perfectly acceptable. My St Helens' buddies were at my table, plus a couple from Hobart and a younger man on his own.  His pregnant wife had dropped him off and gone for her own adventure with their 3 year old.  It was Fathers Day, after all.  My table chums were fair and generous people and we decided the residue food should be taken to the thoughtful wife.  It was a lively and peaceful 3 hours and excellent value at $65.

 Back home now.  My cyclamen farm is small but promising.

I was given some free tulips with my 90 daffodils.  I'm not crazy about tulips so planted them among the self sown broad beans.

Jill PD and I play a game in the mornings where I throw the ball and Jill hides it somewhere.   Can you spot the green ball?  She is getting dashed cunning.

We call these early morning games 'look sees' because it gives me a chance to check out things in the garden.  This raised garden bed is more or less neglected.  It has onions at one end.  I planted hearts ease / johnny jump ups / kittens because I'd read they are companion plants to onions.  Both hearts ease and onions are doing well.

 

Finally, back to Georgia's japonica hedge.  It now has what I think is hawthorn flowering through it.  Classic hedging material. 

But LAST WEEK was Mum's 95th birthday!!!!